Another day, another mayoral candidate. With today’s announcement from Slav Davidzon—the 26-year-old founder and CEO of ThinkHost, Inc web hosting services and a “social change entrepreneur and leader” (plus “an experienced technical professional and peace advocate”)—City Commissioner Sam Adams has nine challengers for the seat Mayor Tom Potter is vacating. (However, from the city’s records, Davidzon hasn’t technically filed yet.)

Davidzon’s entire announcement is after the jump, and you can check out his campaign site at ourportland.org.

He’s a Green Party member who admits that his is a “long-shot campaign”—but one he thinks could “forever change the political landscape of our great nation.” He’s also got a bike touring company, and is an occasional commenter on the bikey SHIFT email list and BikePortland.org—where a post about his candidacy today elicited plenty of vitriol toward Davidzon from those more familiar with him than I am, with comments like “He thought my organization should be bending over backwards to support his bike tour and was shockingly rude and pushy about it. I really did not appreciate his entitled attitude, nor his disrespect for my time or my organization’s other work. He does not speak for me, or plenty of others in the bike community who have told me about similar experiences.”

His ideas are awfully lofty, but they may appeal to Portland’s progressive set (and offer a nice contrast to yesterday’s new candidate, the curmudgeonly Gerhard Watzig).

Some highlights of his “think global, act local” platform:

• “Install solar panels on every roof in Portland”

• Provide “locally-owned, locally-controlled, universal, free healthcare” to every Portlander

• Support small business startups by providing “interest-free loans with a mentor program” while simultaneously instituting “higher taxation for big multi-nationals doing business in the city”

• Banning cars from one-fifth of Portland’s streets, leaving them to bikes, pedestrians, and transit

• “The city must stop issuing marriage licenses until it is able to do so in compliance with the Constitution and is able to marry gay and lesbian couples.” (My personal favorite, only because the city has nothing to do with marriage licenses—it’s a county function.)

• Finally, he’d put some teeth into the city’s anti-war resolutions, by “directing the city’s legal department to defend American soldiers who refuse to take part in the mass-murder.”

How is he going to fund and/or do these things? He doesn’t say. I hope to meet him soon, and find out.

More after the jump.

Dear Friend,

It is with much excitement that I am announcing a new vision for a sustainable Portland and a livable future; a vision advanced in my candidacy for Mayor of Portland. I am writing today to invite you to join me in creating a more livable, just, green city; and in turn, a world in which we can all thrive. Please take a moment to visit our new campaign website at www.ourportland.org.

Portland needs a mayor who has the vision and courage to take the bold steps towards true sustainability and social justice; a mayor who will be independent of big money interests; an outsider from the political establishment who will be willing to stick his or her neck out and do the right thing without first calculating the potential costs to his or her own political future and self-interest.

It is time that certain issues became a part of the dialogue about what kind of a city we want and who ought to lead the city towards those goals as the next mayor of our great city:

Universal health care.
It is immoral that thousands of Americans die each year because they do not have access to the medical care they need; but more absurd is the amount of money we're wasting on medical care. We can have cheaper, universal, localized health care.

As mayor, I will work to cover every Portlander with universal health care through a locally-owned, cooperative health system; and in doing so, we will save money, create sustainable jobs, and keep the profits in our city, rather than in the pockets of rich shareholders far away.

Renewable energy.
I will lower electrical bills by creating a cooperative solar-powered electrical company which will install solar panels on every roof in Portland and then sell the energy back to the residents, pumping the excess back into the grid.

Sustainability.
As mayor, I will create true bicycle/pedestrian boulevards by shutting down a major proportion of city streets to traffic; thus immediately improving air quality in the city, lowering the rates of respiratory disease such as asthma, and creating many miles of green space.

Community building and local economic development.
I believe that living communities and living economies go hand-in-hand. We need a massive government funding program to support the development of a local, living, small-business economy that would in turn bring out the best of the city.

Less Walmarts, and more Small-Marts; less Wall Street, more Belmont and Hawthorne Street. And I believe that it is the city's job to support not the wealthy big businesses but the small and independent mom and pop shops that make our city unique.

According to one recent report from Lane County, it costs tax payers $23,800 to create a corporate job, while it only costs $2,100 to create a local, small business job. It simply makes sense to reverse the insane big-business economics that have been shoved down our throats for far too long.

Protecting civil and human rights.
As mayor, I will fight for equal treatment under the law for gay couples -- no marriage licenses will be issued by the city to any couple until gay marriage is equally recognized, as required by the US Constitution.

I will further work to create a fund to defend and support the true patriots -- the US soldiers who refuse to serve as part of the illegal occupation of Iraq.

Let's change the world, together.
This campaign will be based on the simple paradigm of creating rather than protesting -- a belief that it is far more powerful to create something we'd love than to protest that which we dislike; for at the end of the day, it is action, and action alone that counts.

Please take a moment to check out our new campaign site at www.ourportland.org and comment on the vision I am proposing for our incredible city; and let's start building a real democracy
in this city.

With the warmest regards,

Slav Davidzon
www.ourportland.org